Rosemarie Mulcahy, a distinguished historian of Spanish and Italian art - and a dear friend - died on 5 September 2012. Today, marking the first anniversary, there will be a memorial celebration at 1:30 pm at Newman House, St. Stephen's Green,
Dublin.

I
am grateful to have seen Rosemarie barely two weeks before her stunningly
unexpected death. She and her husband Seán always spent a week in August with friends at
Castiglioncello, on the Tuscan coast. So I popped down for lunch, from my home in Florence.

It
was a very pleasant lunch, on a terrace overlooking the sea—but just a lunch.
We were old friends who had hung out together countless times in the past and
we fully expected to continue doing so in the future. Rosemarie and I talked
mostly about her many plans—for publications, travel and a prestigious lecture
tour in Spain.

Now a year has passed—but
can any of us believe it? I
am still not ready to think of Rosemarie Mulcahy in the past tense.

For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by the turbulent relationship between Michelangelo Buonarroti and the Medici rulers of Florence. And in a few days, I will be beginning a speaking tour on this very topic. This will take me to Detroit (9 March), Toronto (12 March), London, Ont. (13 March) and Chicago (21 March). Then later, who knows where else?! If you live in those parts of the world, it would be great to meet you! See below for the relevant times and places.

About Me

Edward Goldberg is an art historian, an archival sleuth and a long-time resident of Florence. Along the way, he achieved a PhD at Oxford, taught at Harvard, founded the Medici Archive Project (MAP) and published many articles and books. These include Patterns in Late Medici Art Patronage (Princeton, 1983), After Vasari: History, Art and Patronage in Late Medici Florence (Princeton, 1988) and—most recently—Jews and Magic in Medici Florence: The Secret World of Benedetto Blanis (Toronto, 2011) and A Jew at the Medici Court: The Letters of Benedetto Blanis 'Hebreo', 1615-1621 (Toronto, 2011).